The Cat Died – Dealing with loss

Sadly, yesterday, the cat that was lost was found dead. It had only been with us for 7 months of its short life yet the loss of her is felt keenly.

As with every aspect of our lives, any change that we experience is a process that we need to allow to happen. Dealing with death is perhaps the hardest and I am no exception to that.

However, as I experienced it, I did it with awareness and so moving through this change is less painful than I have experienced loss in the past. I did not want to dwell too much on what had actually happened and I felt not resistance to this course. It was clear that she had been hit by a car and that was all I really knew. However, in my sadness and relief of finding her and being allowed to have this closure I also had thoughts to which I felt really resistant to. These thoughts where really positive thoughts that felt really good, and yet in my guilt I would stop myself from thinking them. Thoughts like ‘actually, this is a perfect unfolding for the family as a whole because she was so nervous’ ‘She was such a nervous cat that catering for her needs would be constant and relieved to be with out those considerations’ ‘she always made such a mess of the cat litter, glad to not have to deal with that anymore’

These thoughts were breaking my heart, but I decided to consider that they were there for a reason – that they were there to actually made me feel good… ? so why am I not allowed to feel good in her passing? I know she is still an eternal spirit and with us constantly because she is part of the family. I know that she is blissfully happy to be free of her physical constraint, I know that she has chosen a path of least resistance to happy for herself from which we are all benefiting, which is what she wants. So why can’t I allow myself to feel those positive aspects?

We have been so socially trained to expecting to feel bad about death, to feel guilty about death, that it has become a default reaction without really considering the implication that it has on us. My fighting those thoughts were making me feel so much more pain. Pain that I know the cat does not need me to feel for her, so who needs me to feel them?

Later that day a friend stopped by to check we were all ok and her support was really appreciated. Just to have someone being there helped to create a new energy in the house. The friend, relating, wanted to discuss what had actually happened to the cat. I had not given this much thought and as the conversation flowed I went in that direction. The images coming into my head over what might happened started to upset me deeply. I changed the subject but she bought it back, so I insisted we change the subject. I simply wasn’t ready to entertain the possibilities – yet as I write this now I am so grateful to her for unblocking the energy.

The cat was about a foot from the front door by the wall of the house. Somehow not easy to see as had used the door about an hour earlier and not seen her even though I now know that she must have been there. As horrible as it sounds, the truth I didn’t want to confront is that she may have been there since Saturday evening alive but unable to move. She definitely died in the early hours of Monday morning. So for a whole day she may have been there and I didn’t know, she may have seen us going in and out of the house unable to say anything.

In respecting my own timing for confronting this by stopping the conversation with my friend, whilst I am deeply sad about it, I am not feeling that chest twisting ‘pain’, I’m not uncontrollably crying, I am not feeling that unforgivable guilt. I am just so sad to have lost her but so so glad that she made it to the house so that we could find her. I am so happy to know that even though she was a rescue, she had enough time to know what love is and to want to be with us in the end. I not only love her deeply still, but I feel her deep love for me as our relationship now can continue in a new dimension.

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2 responses to “The Cat Died – Dealing with loss”

I am really sorry about your cat. When I went to a medium many years ago, she said that a large orange tabby was always following me around. She described my cat Monty who had died two years prior to this reading. In life, Monty followed me everywhere. His death was extremely painful for me. It was comforting to know that he still wanted to hangout even in the afterlife. She also told me that all of my deceased family members got a kick out of the cat following me everywhere. Apparently, it’s a laugh riot on the other side. 🙂 Death is only the beginning for all of us.